Morrone JJ. 2000. Between the taunt and the eulogy: Leon Croizat and the panbiogeography. INTERCIENCIA 25: (1) 41-47.Abstract:The Italian botanist Leon Croizat (1894-1982) is a controversial figure in the most recent history of biogeography. Based on the metaphor that "life and earth evolve together" -which means that geographic barriers and biotas coevolve- Croizat developed a new biogeographic methodology, which he named 'panbiogeography '. This method was basically to plot distributions of organisms on maps and connect the disjunct distribution areas or collection localities together with lines called tracks. Croizat found that individual tracks for unrelated groups of organisms were repetitive, and considered the resulting summary lines as generalized tracks which indicated the preexistence of ancestral biotas, subsequently fragmented by tectonic and/or climatic changes. Some authors, mainly those belonging to the dispersalist establishment, have dismissed Croizat's contributions, considering him as idiosyncratic, or a member of a lunatic fringe. Others have considered Croizat as one of the most original thinkers of modern comparative biology, whose contributions advanced the foundations of a new synthesis between earth and life sciences. Following its synthesis with phylogenetic systematics, Croizat's panbiogeography has emerged as being central to vicariance or cladistic biogeography. In spite of this synthesis, some authors currently agree in the distinction between Croizat's panbiogeography and cladistic biogeography.

So, perhaps both a loon and brilliant in his way.

Lotsa info here, including some vituperative anti-Darwin, and anti-Mayr stuff from late Croizat:

THE EMERGENCE OF VICARIANCE BIOGEOGRAPHY: FROM WEGENER TO CROIZAT AND THE CLADISTS HALLAM, Anthony, School of Earth Sciences, Univ of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham B15 2TT United Kingdom, A.Hallam@bham.ac.uk.

One of the strongest arguments that Wegener put forward to support his continental drift hypothesis derived from biogeography. The conventional interpretation of the close taxonomic relationships of Mesozoic terrestrial organisms between the southern continents was of land bridges that had subsequently foundered beneath the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Wegener cited this biogeographic evidence in support of his hypothesis, pointing out that neither the geological evidence (absence of granitic rocks) nor the geophysical evidence (high density of ocean floor) supported the idea of foundered continents, and that the only plausible alternative was that the Atlantic and Indian Oceans had opened in the fairly recent geological past. Later last century this notion led directly to the concept of vicariance biogeography, following the work of Croizat, which focussed on the spatiotemporal analysis of distribution patterns of organisms and is different from phenetic biogeography, which investigates similarities between biotas in terms of numbers of taxa in common. Croizat's so called generalised tracks indicated the distribution pattern of an ancient biota before it vicariated. The tracks for terrestrial organisms may cross oceans and hence could not be explained by present-day biogeography. With the general acceptance of plate tectonics by the early 1970s, Croizat's work was used to create a new school of vicariance biogeography. The early work was characterised by a polemical approach that virtually denied any validity to the alternative dispersalist school. Many have subsequently reacted against this excessive polarisation, and dismissive attitudes towards dispersalist mechanisms, but without question a new scientific rigour has been introduced, with more emphasis being placed on testing models and with ad hoc hypothesising being discouraged. An important difference quickly emerged, however, between Croizat and the other vicariance biogeographers, who supported cladistic methods of taxonomic analysis, whereas Croizat favoured conventional phenetic methods.